First Annual Jerry Silver Memorial Poker Game

Sunday March 28

This recap of the first annual Jerry Silver Memorial Poker game was delayed because of needed sleep.
I was up at 3 AM the day of the game.  We stopped playing at 3 AM the next day.
It all caught up to me last night.  I slept 12 hours.

It was a fine game in every way, well attended and delightful.  Jerry had plenty of house selling stories and told us a bit about his new life and job.  He is happy to be relocated, happier with the new job and the new area.  Such a fine thing when such a huge late in life change turns out to be wonderful.
Jerry actually banked the game for us which made me very comfortable.  Thanks Jerry.  When he cashed out  to go home at about midnight, he ended up about a dollar or so over as banker, and that felt good as well.

Players included: Jerry, Slink, Jay, Bill, Gregg, Peter, Bruce, Dewey, Charlie, and my Burden Lake neighbor Ron.

Scott was supposed to come, but his septic backed up on him.  I guess he figured he did not actually have to drive and put up with any of our sh*(t since he had plenty of it right there at home and without the inconvenience and waste of gasoline.

I can't hope to remember the hands.  I 'll do my best with a few.  I ended up with the high hand trophy because I hit tens full of nines.  Up until then Jerry had tens full of eights.  So I just squeezed him out of it.  Ron would have had it, but he did not show his quad 7's.
I edged Jerry out of one delightful pot too.  I had A-6 of diamonds and the nut flush on the turn.  I slow played while Jerry bet a bit into me and on the diamond river card he ended all-in.  He had the king of diamonds.  Both of us had accumulated nice chips stacks so that win held me through most of the night.
I got terribly tired later in the night and lost all my chips and a few more buy ins until I was out of chips and $110 down.  I decided to take a break;  Jerry decided to call it a night and everyone cashed in.
At this point Peter was the big winner.  Playing his aggressive "match the pot" strategy Peter was up over $200 which is a huge win in our games. 
So I offered Peter and Gregg another session if we could start all over again.  They agreed and that proved a fine offer for me.  When I left I was up $42.
Again it was nice to play aggressive poker against Peter.  He was playing with won money so I just redistributed it a little.
I don't know how all the others did.  I know Bruce was first out and left after his $50 budget.  It was a hard game for him.  He was not too lucky.
He had been eager to play too.  He arrived for the 3 PM game at 2:30PM and I was trying to catch a nap.  I had spent most of the day taking down the garage sale stuff so the poker room was neat and clean.
Charlie lasted a good long while.  He thought he was going home a few times, but all in wins helped him stay until almost the end of the session.
Bill came late and just could not get cards to play.  Then he got cards and a couple of us sucked out the chips after all-in bets.  I remember one that I did on a good sized pot.  I actually called a decent post flop bet with just a gut shot straight.  I held Peter's 6-9.  On the turn came a 6 and on the river another 6.  I had runner-runner trips.  This did not make Bill happy at all.
I think Peter was the other culprit.  Peter can tend to win on rivers because he uses the "match the pot" play to semi-bluff.  So every little while he will get sucked into an all-in call and need the river to win and he will.
So Bill left after a bit thoroughly frustrated.
I guess others left with small bits of money. Gregg played two sessions, leaving early and coming back for the all night session.  That is why his last e-mail was signed exhausted. Well, almost signed exhausted.  He was too tired to spell.

I did not do food and everyone said it was fine.  No one ate.  I made a bit of popcorn.  Slink wanted to call out for pizza but he was the only one who wanted to eat, so he went to the corner and got his own individual pizza.  I like it that food is so handy there unlike Burden Lake where off season it is a long way to get anything.

Everyone seems to like this Orford poker room.  I love it.  I don't feel I am bothering Elizabeth and now I have one room cleared out and a single bed set up so I can sleep overnight and not drive home.

We have used the red table each time.  I have a long table set up withe leaves if we get say eleven.  After that we can split and play on two tables.
I made certain we had plenty of chips and also plenty of trays this time. 
I liked people being very considerate around the alcohol issues. 
The only thing I don't like is having to bank the game.  So in the future my invitations will ask for someone who expects to come at the beginning and stay a while to do the banking. 
Peter is willing, but he does not have the funds to cover his errors.  Gregg is willing, but he banks at his house and just covers the errors without even knowing how much they might be.  So I don't think asking either of these guys is a good idea.
Having to leave after a few hours is not a problem  If you start the game as banker we can set the time you are leaving as a time to cash in and reconcile the chips, and then start again.  Many of the players had wished in this game I had split the sessions so that there were not so many huge pots toward the end.  I expect I will do that.  It also better accomodates late players.  It is very hard to come in with $10 against large chip stacks and manage to end up a winner.
Everyone teased me about chairs and my email of many colors, but had all the possible folks come, I would not have had enough chairs to cover the game.  You can always come in and ask, leave the chairs in the car, and then only get them if you need to get them.  Remember too that even if many people bring chairs, when they leave, they take them along, so if each person had one folding chair and brought it, that would do the trick.  Eventually I'll buy some when I find good ones at a reasonable price, but there are lots of things the poker room needs, so bringing chairs helps.

I ended up with a new card protector from the garage sale, one of my inlaws toy pigs.  Gregg took a rubber fellow made to look like a dressed up Nathan's hotdog playing baseball. Jerry insisted the guy was a cricket player.  It was a hard position to argue, but then Jerry likes defending counterintuitive and just plain wrong hypotheses, so he was in his element.  I thought that there were no hotdogs at cricket matches, but I am wrong about that.  Still, the guy's clearly a baseball player.

One serious thing to say here is to urge everyone to bring a card protector or use chips to protect your hand.  There were four incidents in the game where, had they happened in a casino, the unprotected hand would have been collected and mucked.  We don't get as strict as the casino on these rules, but it is frustrating when someone throws cards on a hand or a dealer grabs cards left too far toward the middle.  Make it easy on all of us and develop habits that will make your casino visits easier as well.

Oh, and while you are looking around for card protectors, another helpful thing is to look around for inexpensive decks of cards that are not backed in  red or blue and do not have black marks down the sides.  These used to be easy enough to get in Vegas and I have supplied the games at Gregg's and my own game as well with most of the cards we use.  However, Vegas now black marks nearly all the decks they sell.  As you look consider too that we light the large cut of cards.  Some expensive tourist cards are smaller and have smaller numbers and pips.
Some dollar store cards or so poorly made that they don't hold up for more than one game.
And I am not suggesting that you buy them at new prices.  I won't pay more than a dollar a pack myself, but in casinos they are often less than that and even free as promotions.   Also, I have found them in thrift stores and garage sales for as little as a quarter. Think about donating them to the next Gregg or Orford game.

Okay,  I don't anticipate any Orford games until after Vegas, but you never know.

Thanks for coming to wish Jerry a fond farewell.  Thanks, Jerry for being a game catalyst.  Sorry to have missed the rest of you, but there will be more opportunities.